It’s pretty much a straight race to the finish line, but with some back and forth that enables you to gather or lose the victory points you need to win. Player can move the rum bottle around to allow different crew members to become available for purchase, but mostly we find this to be a bit extra. Point treasures are kept secret from other players, while power treasures are revealed and left face up in front of the player for as long as they own the card. Yet, it doesn’t mean you’re completely out of the game yet either–because everyone has the same limited amount of action cards in their decks too. Each ship starts off in Port Royal, the greatest hive of scum and villainy in the 18th century Caribbean if we’re discounting Tortuga.

That core mechanic seems like it doesn’t permit particularly clever play but when it’s paired with the payment system it allows for you to be very sneaky by working out the implication of the penalties and where they’ll take you.

Hardcore gamers will lament the luck elements of the die rolls and card draws, and the lack of deep strategic choices. It’s a lightweight battle system, but that’s all to the good – Jamaica isn’t really a game of Errol Flynn style combat theatrics. For a game with such a simple rule-set too it has a frustrating number of grey areas where house-rules will have to reign.

Usually, these treasures lie off the beaten path – rather than taking the shortest route around the island, you’ll have to make a potentially lengthy detour. Taking into account the cards above, we have several choices if the captain plays the five in the morning and a six in the evening.

It isn’t very fiddly or confusing to control the ghost ship and it does a good job of adding a third player to the board.